Council on Foreign Relations: Disengaging From Somalia

[Castro]

March 10, 2010

 

Interviewee: Bronwyn E. Bruton

Interviewer: Deborah Jerome, Deputy Editor, CFR.org

 

A bloody war between Somalia's al-Shabaab militias and the ineffectual, U.S.-supported Transitional Federal Government that is backed by African Union troops could escalate amid reports of an imminent TFG offensive. In a new Council Special Report on Somalia, democracy and governance expert Bronwyn Bruton argues that the best way for the United States to fight terrorism and promote stability in Somalia is a policy of "constructive disengagement." Not only is an approach that focuses on humanitarian aid and development less costly than the current support of the TFG, she says, a "Somalia left to itself is in many respects less threatening than a Somalia that is being buffeted by the winds of international ambitions to control the country."

 

You argue in the report that, in many ways, outside intervention, rather than its failed state status, is what has contributed to the rise of Islamic radicals in Somalia.

 

We always have concerns about failed states because they're in a power vacuum. In the case of Somalia, crimes like piracy have tended to pop up, but the assessment of U.S. intelligence [in a 2007 West Point report] was that Somalia was actually inoculated from foreign jihadist movements, from foreign terrorist groups. They based that assessment on extensive al-Qaeda correspondence intercepted during the 1990s. During the 1990s, al-Qaeda had attempted to work with a local group called Al-Ittihad to establish an emirate in Somalia, and they found themselves really roundly defeated by the clan system and the inhospitability of the environment. Al-Qaeda's experience in Somalia was so terrible that U.S. intelligence basically said, "There's no way they can operate there."

 

Al Ittihad in the 1990s gained traction in the wake of the massive UN intervention to rebuild the country. That was of course the period in which Black Hawk Down took place. [Mark Bowden's 1999 book about a battle between U.S. forces and local militia after an effort by the U.S. and the UN to capture a Somali warlord in Mogadishu.] Likewise, the Shabaab has risen up in a period of increased international activism in Somalia. The creation of the Shabaab itself can be traced to 2004, the year the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) was created. It really sprang up as a counterreaction to international attempts to create some kind of a political regime in Somalia. The Shabaab grew from being a fairly fringe, radical movement, to becoming a popular insurgency in the wake of the Ethiopian invasion which destroyed the Union of Islamic Courts......

Complete CFR interview

[xiinfaniin]

Bronwyn E. Bruton:

 

The U.S. should feel entitled to use force against foreign operatives who are looking to exploit Somalia's conflict. My sense is that the majority of Somalis would not object to that, as long as Somali civilians are not caught up in the crossfire. The Shabaab is broadly perceived by Somalis as a foreign movement promoting foreign goals, and I don't think that many Somalis are going to have a very hard time accepting that some guy that's come to Somalia bringing guns, disorder, and chaos is going to be wiped out by the United States

 

What this Ms. Bruton is saying is very simple: contain the conflict so it does not overflow to the other states in the region, but don’t support the TFG decisively against alshabaab. In other words, don’t disturb the military equilibrium in the south that keeps the country chaotic and ungovernable.

 

That is a sinister suggestion, to say the least.

[Castro]

^^^^ As sinister as it is predictable.

[Mintid Farayar]

You fellas, as usual, left out the most telling part of the recommended strategy.

 

"To that extent, the United States might have to invest some political capital in resolving this crisis--in persuading the African Union for example or the United Nations to support an approach that does not involve the TFG . The report has suggested it might be useful and necessary to make one final push, to try to reform the TFG into an institution that can credibly govern Somalia. I tend to think that the TFG might have to run its course before the constructive disengagement strategy can work. But the fact of the matter is that the TFG's prospects are so grim that I think it's only a matter of time . AMISOM [African Union Mission in Somalia] troops haven't been paid in nine months ; several of them have died of malnutrition. The number of casualties that they are taking is sky rocketing. They can't stay in Mogadishu forever. The Ethiopians were pushed out of Mogadishu; AMISOM will be pushed out as well. That's an embarrassment that the U.S. really should want to avoid, and I'm urging the current administration to start thinking on those terms. The current strategy has an expiration date."

[Mintid Farayar]

The real policy towards Somalia is:

"Qowda maqashii, waxna ha u qaban!"

[Castro]

^^^ Ask not what the world can do for Somalia. Ask what we can do for our country.